It Hurts It's Hard to Breathe Sometimes
by excel.siors
Summary: He forgets who told him about the technique. Maybe he'd read about it, or saw it on TV. It doesn't really matter that much, anyways. He barely uses it. It's not very effective, listing names of people you care about, when you've only got two.


**Right, sooo, I'm not new to writing for TWW, but I'm new to publishing it, so just bear with me here.**

 **In the spirt of disclaimers, the title of this fic is from the song "Carry You" by Ruelle (which, if you haven't heard, then you should bc it's very J/D). The idea for this fic came to me after watching The Haunting of Hill House, and I'm not sure if that requires a disclaimer, but better safe than sorry. Finally, the characters and setting belong to Mr. Sorkin himself, ofc.**

He forgets who told him about the technique. Maybe he'd read about it, or saw it on TV. It doesn't really matter that much, anyways. He barely uses it. It's not very effective, listing names of people you care about, when you've only got two. Mom and Dad. Saying that over and over again in your head doesn't really have a calming effect, especially in the case of a panic attack.

When he tells his mother this, she replies that he's still got three, really. Joanie's not with them anymore physically, but that doesn't mean he has to stop caring about her.

 _Mom, Dad, Joanie._

It's still not really much of a list, anyways. It's about twenty five years later when he decides to add another name to the list. He doesn't tell anyone, even his mother, especially his mother. He certainly doesn't tell _her_. The fact that he starts putting her name at the beginning of the mantra isn't something he's prepared to acknowledge on the level of it truly meaning anything. It just sounds better that way, he thinks.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie._

He starts actually using it around the same time. Stanley isn't unaware of the technique, although he's skeptical of its effectiveness. He tells him it helps to picture their faces, see if he can't imagine the way their laughs sound. Hearing Donna's laugh is easy, but as he moves down the line, it becomes a bit harder.

He never has panic attacks at work. Never. It's always the loneliness that causes them to come out in full form. It's always when he wakes in the middle of the night, hears sirens in the distance, and can't stop reliving. No one is there to ground him, so he keeps repeating the mantra in his head, and eventually the memories subside enough for him to breathe evenly again, but he still hears the sirens long after the noise has faded away.

When he stops spending his nights alone, it becomes a little easier. When he hears the sirens, he forces his eyes to stare in her direction. She's asleep beside him, real and beautiful and alive, and everything else is irrelevant. The noise doesn't go away, but the mantra becomes easier when he's able to touch her, to pull her close and feel her heavy breath on his skin to remind him that they're both still here.

He doesn't remember what causes the slip up during transition. He has no idea what brings it on, and it frightens him because he doesn't do this in front of people, not like this, and he can't find a wall to stand against, and Donna's nowhere in sight, and it's getting harder to find his breath.

But everything sort of fades out, a familiar voice shouts for someone to call Donna, and then the voice is near him, coaxing him softly, getting him to sit down and press his back against one of the desks. "Josh, I'm here," the voice says. "Look at me." And the mantra is slipping from his memory; he can't remember what it is he's supposed to be telling himself or picturing or imagining. He can't think of anything, until the voice suddenly has a name.

 _Sam, Sam, Sam._

"I'm right here, Josh, and you're going to be okay," he says. Sam grabs his hand, squeezes hard, tells him to take deep breaths. His voice is so soft, so kind, that it's easy to follow. The embarrassment of having an episode like this in front of his entire staff is somewhat lost on him after that. Donna shows up eventually, and soon everything is okay, but he adds another name to the list.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam._

It takes him three years to add Ainsley's name to the list. When Sam first tells him, he's angry. He doesn't want to believe that his best friend thinks so little of him that he'd kept his relationship a secret for years because he was worried he'd be bitter that she's a Republican. He knows it's somewhat hypocritical to go on pretending as though he hates her, but he always has been able to hold a grudge better than most people. They're married in March of their second year in office, and yet he still can't bring himself around to the idea that she's family now. Donna likes her, Sam loves her, so why can't he just move past it and accept her? Problem is, he doesn't think she likes him too much either.

It's during the re-election campaign that he finally realizes how much he cares about her. They end up in his office alone together, a scheme concocted by their respective spouses in an attempt to force them to bond, working ridiculously late hours because they're both reluctant to admit they'd rather not return home to empty apartments with Sam and Donna still in Illinois.

He remembers leaving something in Donna's office, and she volunteers to get it, needing an excuse to get away and reflect on how abruptly their relationship has shifted into "friend" territory. It takes her much longer than it should, which he later expresses guilt at for not going to find her sooner. When he goes looking, when he finds her all bruised and shaking, when his eyes land on the man who's forced himself on her, he doesn't hold back. He attacks. The Secret Service ends up shooting the man dead before the night's out, and he brings her back to his apartment, let's her sleep in his bed while he takes the couch, and finally decides it's time he put her on the list.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam, Ainsley._

The next time he adds to the list, it's not even a name. They've only been engaged for two months when they find out they're already becoming a family, and while Donna is afraid and shaking with tears when she tells him, he couldn't be happier. For months his mantra has only the word "daughter" attached to the end, but then one day she finally has a name.

Chloe Joan Lyman is born on February 18, 2008. "Named after her Dad's three sisters," Donna says, and while C.J. and his mother both end up in tears at this declaration, Zoey complains that rhyming with her name isn't really being named after her. Her complaints fade, though, the second the baby is in her arms and he is watching her with clouded eyes and a smile that seems like it'll never go away. They ask Sam and Ainsley to be the godparents, even though he grumbles that Jews don't have godparents, but Donna says it's less about the religious tradition than it is about who they trust with their daughter's life if something happens to them.

Within days they can all tell she's going to look exactly like her mother, but when her first word is "donut" and she learns how to trick her parents into giving her one before dinner without so much as a full sentence, they stop thinking she's going to be anything but a miniature version of her father. He watches her grow into a stressed, monomaniacal, little genius with sad eyes and guilt that never goes away. He tells Ainsley once that she deserves better than to be like him, that he wishes she had anyone else for a father because he can't even take care of himself most of the time, and an anxiety disorder and the inability to empathize with people isn't something she deserves.

But wow, does he love her. He loves her so much sometimes he thinks he's going to just spontaneously combust on the spot when she kisses him. She spends more time with the leader of the free world than kids her own age, and despite the fact that it doesn't help her anxiety much, he can't help but burst with pride when President Santos pulls her into his lap and lets her practice sounding out words with his latest executive order. She struggles more than she ends up being able to read, but she takes her limited time with Uncle Matt very seriously, and he wouldn't dare interrupt them.

She is a daddy's girl for practically her whole life, and while their bond is something very unique, he can't help but envy somewhat the relationship she has with her godfather. Sammy is Chloe's number one pal. From the day he first rocks her to sleep after a meltdown, all the way through her adolescent years and beyond. She sits in his lap and colors while he works, they listen to soundtracks in the background, and she even once has an entire five minute conversation with the Majority Whip about Frozen from behind his desk. Sam and Ainsley never have kids of their own, so he can hardly deny his friend the chance to be like a second father to the one child he cares about more than anything.

She grows up in and out of the White House, being tossed between any and every adult who is available to care for her on any given day, and though stability isn't a luxury they're afforded, she claims later that it was what built her. She partakes in lots of extracurriculars to fill the voids, and even with the persistent effort of both her father and Molly Wyatt, she never gets the hang of softball. Instead she becomes a very skilled dancer and pianist. Her musical talent comes from neither of her parents, but from the aunt she will never have the pleasure of knowing. He reminds her of this every so often, and she smiles fondly.

She aces every civics class she ever has to take in school, passes her AP Government exam with a solid five, and decides never to run for public office. Donna shakes her head at their daughter's declaration, and when she ends up making the choice to go to law school and become a children's rights lobbyist, she smiles, reminds him again how much Chloe is like him, and tells her that she thinks it's perfect.

It surprises absolutely no one when she chooses Dartmouth. After years of her father and godfather arguing back and forth over Harvard and Princeton, it makes complete sense that she picks a school which is entirely her own. "Besides," she tells them, "it's closer to Gramms and Poppy. They'll like that."

The day she tells him she's in love with Huck Wyatt, his first phone call is to C.J., not Toby. "What'd you expect, _mi amor_?" she laughs at him. "She's her father's daughter. She was bound to finally converge the Lyman-Ziegler bloodlines eventually."

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam, Ainsley, Chloe._

But all of this is years later. Chloe's not quite four years old when he adds his next name to the list.

They name him Leo because of course they do. They couldn't not. Leo Noah. And if Chloe is the spitting image of her mother with the personality of her father, then Leo is the exact opposite.

Unlike his sister, Leo inherits his father's dimples, curls, and soft brown eyes. But he shares Donna's youthful innocence and love for the world at large. He bonds with his father over baseball, which is a blessing because he was worried that ship had sailed for his family.

They argue like only siblings can, he and Chloe. They bicker and yell and take cheap shots at one another, but every now and then he'll catch her helping him with his math homework, or him helping her rearrange her bookshelf, and he realizes this is what brother-sister bonds are supposed to be. After all, he has little experience.

They get into a particularly rough fight one morning before school over something completely pointless. Chloe, at fourteen, gets out of school about an hour before he does, so she's in the kitchen fixing herself something to eat, CNN playing on low volume in the background as it always is, when they all hear something that stops their hearts.

Five kids are killed, two teachers, and one assistant principal. When, after a chaotic and nauseating couple of hours, they're able to locate Leo and bring him home safely, Chloe clutches him to her, and doesn't let go for a very long time. All arguments from before are forgotten, and he finds that they're nearly inseparable after that.

He doesn't take joy in coaxing his son through the beginning stages of PTSD, or of being able to relate to his fear of sirens, but he knows Leo is grateful for it. After months of therapy, and countless nights spent sleeping with the lights on, Leo finally learns to turn his fear into anger. He's out fighting in the streets before they know it, joining every movement and every march dedicated to gun reform, and if his whole family wasn't behind it before, they sure are now—even Ainsley, which surprises him only at first.

When Leo goes to college on a baseball scholarship, he's completely thrilled. "One of these days you're going to be buying tickets to the Mets' spring training in Florida and not complaining," he tells Donna, "because it's gonna be your kid on the pitcher's mound." She just rolls her eyes at him, but he can tell she's happy for him too. And when Molly starts working for Sports Illustrated, she gets a profile on him, the son of America's political power couple, veering far away from the family business. They couldn't be prouder.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam, Ainsley, Chloe,_ _Leo_.

They try for a third kid for years after Leo's born, but it never comes. It seems as though they're getting too old for this anyways, and decide it's just not meant to be. They've each got a little mini-me, anyways, a sort of perfect symmetry that he's always found beautiful.

He starts to devote his time to convincing Sam to run for President. It takes time, of course, years, but about two months after the filing deadline, Sam finally decides he's ready, ready to run the next term, anyways, but only if Donna's on his ticket. She debates back and forth for days, and just when she thinks she's finally made the decision to take a leap, there's a new addition on the way.

He doesn't understand how it's possible, but it is, and this time the surprise isn't as welcome as the first. They'd wanted it, sure, but not like this. Not when they were about to launch themselves headfirst into a national campaign. And she was so ready for this, he's convinced her of that, that she deserves it.

It takes another month before Sam convinces them to go all in anyways. "We're a team," he tells them. "Always have been. I can't win this without you guys, and I wouldn't want to. We'll all be in this together." And it has a certain irony to it, he thinks, that Sam is the one trying to convince him this time, but it works out just fine.

Chloe is eleven and Leo is almost eight when the baby is finally born. They name her Harper Rose, after absolutely no one, which is odd for them because such things always have meaning, but this name doesn't for some reason. It feels better that way.

He's teased over and over again for being (and looking) old enough to pass for her grandfather. Leo likes to say, to the ever-increasing indignation of his older sister, that he's the only child in the family who wasn't an accident. For a long time, Harper is too young to understand what he means by this, but follows Chloe's lead every time she tackles him for saying it. By the time she's old enough to get it , Chloe's no longer around to tackle him, so she does it herself, and Donna lets her.

They should've seen the car accident coming, really. It'd been too many years since they'd had a near-death or traumatizing event in their family. Huck, having been at the wheel, comes out with no more than a few scrapes and a sprained ankle. Chloe has a pretty mild surgery and is released from the hospital the next day. Harper, however, is in critical condition for an earth-shattering 46 hours. The surgery is dangerous, and even though she lives, there is a possibility of severe brain damage. He experiences a horrifying sensation of déjà vu, and he's told later by Charlie (now White House Chief of Staff) that Sam, in the middle of an emergency Situation Room meaning, had asked a religious admiral to administer a community prayer for the Lyman family and his youngest goddaughter.

Harper wakes up completely alert, but without the use of her voice. It's horrible, honestly, but he can't bring himself to care much that he'll never hear her voice again, so long as she's still able to communicate with him—as long as she's still here at all.

Joey Lucas, still hanging around, ends up being their personal tutor in ASL. The whole family takes to learning it as quickly as possible, but none throw themselves into it as much as Chloe. Ever her sister's biggest fan and advocator, Chloe learns not only for herself, but to be able to practice with her sister even when Joey isn't around. After being devastated that she's unable to sing alongside her sister's piano-playing at the annual White House Christmas Party, Harper convinces Chloe to teach her part of Christmas Canon on the piano, and the two play together, side-by-side, Leo cheering loudest of all when the song is over.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam, Ainsley, Chloe, Leo, Harper._

The list never gets any larger than that. He hates the fact that it stops one short of double digits, but once he starts extending past his immediate family, he opens the doors for too many others. C.J., Toby, Charlie, all of their kids, his eventual grandchildren—and soon enough he's got everyone he's ever come in contact with from Amy Gardner to Ryan Pierce to some old woman he almost ran into in the grocery store. Once he's got everyone short of Jeff Haffley, it's really not a list anymore so much as a census, so he keeps it at nine.

It's ironic, though, that the more names he adds, the less often he has to use it. He doesn't have to list the names anymore, they're so ingrained in his head. When he feels a panic attack coming on, his mind automatically starts imagining their names, faces, laughs.

He wishes more than anything he could go back and tell the frightened, anxious little boy with only two names on his list that everything was going to be alright, even if it was going to take a very long time to seem that way.

He wants to tell the little boy about Sam, a man who walks into his life on accident one day and ends up becoming the best friend and closest thing to a brother he'll ever have. An idealist with the kindest heart and the most beautiful words, who will never leave his side and who will follow him to the ends of the Earth.

He wants to tell him about Ainsley, a woman who is somewhat thrown into his life on purpose and ends up becoming the one person his best friend could never live without. A Republican with a kind face but a sharp tongue, who never stops making him defend his beliefs stronger than he's ever had to with a true enemy.

He wants to tell him about Chloe, Leo, and Harper, three children who are thrown into his life at various stages and end up becoming the people who he imagines give him hope for the country's future, long after he's run his course. Innocent little babies in his eyes, but three people in their own right.

He wants to tell that little boy about all the friends and mentors he'll have along the way, all the memories of Big Block of Cheese Day and snowballs on inauguration night and ballet recitals and baseball games that teach him he has more to live for than just each and every day.

But mostly, he wants to tell little Joshua Lyman about Donnatella Moss, a woman who shoves herself into his life and ends up becoming the single most important human to ever enter it. A beautiful, powerful soul with his heart in her hands, who never stops loving him unconditionally, no matter how many times he thinks he's more than any person should be able to handle.

And maybe he'll never really stop hearing the sirens, but his list is full of so much more now than just "Mom and Dad," and despite Stanley's reluctance, it works just fine. It always has.

 _Donna, Mom, Dad, Joanie, Sam, Ainsley, Chloe, Leo, Harper._


End file.
